


Over Pancakes

by Anonymous



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guns, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 23:02:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15035255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “Lance. Listen. Please,” Keith’s voice shook, in that unusual way it had never done. It would have been adorable if Lance didn't want his own brains painting the ground separating them. “Let me go over there.”-- Lance isn't coping.





	Over Pancakes

**Author's Note:**

> Vent out fic. 
> 
> IMPORTANT: Please read the tags carefully. If you think you might get triggered by the content don't read it. If you have any doubts about it you can always send me an ask and I'll explain the fic. Be safe!!

The railing of the bridge, iron-warm from the remnants of sunlight, met Lance’s fingers easily, welcoming his heavy soul like only abandoned constructions knew how to do. The sun had almost finished setting over this part of the city, scattered and humanly wild, and Lance watched, impassive, the flow of cars underneath him. Neon lights bounced off glass, the metallic reflection of human lives charming his gaze into following them. 

 

He could feel the weight of his gun, tucked comfortably on the edge of his pants, recently cleaned and waiting. His favourite. It was only fair, he thought, that his girl would be the one to blow the life out of him. 

 

Fire licked underneath his skin, crawling and crawling and biting at his aching muscles until he leaned against the railing, biting a whimper on his way down. An invisible force weighed on his bones, tore into him and pulled down until Lance considered becoming one with the ground. Becoming dust or dirt, whichever came first, he supposed. 

 

He could barely believe he had managed to get there on his own, considering the decaying state of his body. A miracle.

 

Or a sign from God. Whatever floats your boat.

 

This had been going on for months. Slow, crawling months in which his body had started to give up on him. His mind had kissed depression right in the mouth years ago, hooked up with it sporadically the following months and then decided to marry it in front of Lance right when he had hit rock bottom. And  _ this _ ? This was the so expected honeymoon. 

 

One that he couldn't handle. 

 

His fingers closed around the grip of the gun, feeling the smooth surface and the cold that curled into his nerves. It wasn't heavy-- her baby never was-- but even unclicking it from his pants had Lance’s muscles aching, teeth grinding together to hold onto something. 

 

_ You have to love all the parts of yourself, sweetheart,  _ his mother’s voice bounced inside his head, dizzying the road below him for a moment.

 

He snorted, cocking his gun. What a fucking load of bullshit. He didn't have mercy to spare for the ugly parts of himself, the ones that made his brain root and clawed at his very soul. The traffic underneath the bridge seemed to slow down, rewind time on itself when he pressed the barrel of the gun against his temple. It felt heavenly, cold and promising. 

All those promises and indefinite peace that Lance craved so deliriously. 

 

He clicked the safety off, the sound of it soothing the darkest part of his mind that kept on whispering, edging him on. Encouraging him.  _ Doitdoitdoitdoit-- _

 

The sound of frantic steps cut through his daze, insistent and completely unavoidable, and he curled the fingers on the railing tightly, circling the barren of the gun over his temple with closed eyes. He wouldn't mind scarring some miserable bastard for life, not when all he wanted was to drop over the railing and not feel the fall. 

 

“Lance!”

 

He froze completely on the spot. He turned slowly, gun still pointed at his head, to see Keith standing at the edge of the bridge, gasping and flushed. He looked frantic, like a man on the verge of losing it all, and Lance’s body made sure to take care of the swirling warmth that settled on his windpipe. Made sure to wipe it out as if it had never existed. 

 

“What are you doing?” Keith asked with increasing panic, eyes darting from Lance’s baby to his lost gaze. “ Lance. Put the gun down.”

 

Wrong move. 

 

“I’m just gonna blow my brains out, Keith. No biggie,” He replied, pressing the gun harder against his temple, finger trembling over the trigger. 

 

“Lance. Listen. Please,” Keith’s voice shook, in that unusual way it had never done. It would have been adorable if Lance didn't want his own brains painting the ground separating them. “Let me go over there.”

 

“Go away,” he whispered, a roaring sound that had Keith flinching. “I don’t wanna do this in front of you.”

 

Stupid. Stupid. Stupidstupidstupid.

 

“But I will, if you don’t go back the way you came from.”

 

Better. 

 

“I’m not walking away from you, Lance. I will  _ never _ walk away from you.”

 

The fierceness of Keith’s voice, the way his fists clenched on his sides in time with his ragged breaths made Lance close his eyes. Made him try to reconcile that image, that desperation in the marks of Keith’s face, with the softness of his voice, the firm cadence of his patience. 

 

His head hurt. 

 

“You have so many things you adore, Lance. Don’t give them up. Please, just… “ his voice broke halfway, tears springing hotly before he could get a hold of himself. “Let me help. There's a way out of this.”

 

“I can’t find it,” he whispered, the grip on the gun weakening. Keith’s eyes were intense, never leaving him, and he trusted them to keep him upright more than the railing. 

 

“You’re on your way to it. I promise. All those times you play with your siblings. The sunset over the beach as you swim. Knitting sweaters because the fabric makes you sleepy. Braiding my hair to show your grandpa how to do your sister’s hair. Those moments are your way out.”

 

Keith was still standing at the edge of the bridge but, with every word, with every sentence that went right into Lance’s ribcage, making a home in between his ribs, he seemed to get closer and closer. Closer than Lance had ever felt him. 

 

“You can't do those things if you end it all here, Lance.”

 

Lance huffed, a broken sound that almost made him lose his balance. The gun was too heavy for his trembling fingers, and he clung to whatever vestiges of nonchalance he could find in himself. 

 

“You would let me braid your hair again?”

 

“I would let you braid my hair for the rest of my entire life if it meant having you in it,” Keith whispered, voice steady but body trembling.

 

He didn't know what to do, didn't know how else he could keep Lance from pulling the trigger, but with the way he was looking at Lance, tears stubbornly clinging to his lashes, Lance knew that it wasn’t worth it. Not tonight. 

 

Lance let the vulnerability seep through him, a second skin that he had denied for far too long. He clicked the safety on with what little strength he had and let the gun slip from his fingers, let it clatter to the floor and listened for the gasp that slipped out of Keith’s mouth. 

 

His chance at peace, gone. 

 

“I’m tired,” he said, as an afterthought. The railing was digging hard into his side, but without it he would go tumbling down towards the ground. 

 

But suddenly the railing was gone, and Keith was right there, gathering him in his arms with a fierceness that Lance recognized. Keith pressed them together, bodies aligning with easiness as Lance melted into it. He took refuge in the crook of Keith’s neck, deciding that thoughts and words were not good as fingers tangled in his hair sweetly. Desperately. Keith was such a contradiction, and Lance wanted to cling to him to remind himself what feeling safe was. 

 

“I don’t want to live like this,” he sobbed out, suddenly, the words wretched out of him violently. Keith shook with the tremors of his chest. “I can’t handle it anymore.”

 

“You’re doing so good,” Keith whispered, pressing his lips against Lance’s temple, the one that had had a gun pressed to it mere minutes ago. “Just hold on. You’re too brave to go down without a fight.”

 

Lance closed his eyes, left the feel of Keith’s lips lull him into a thoughtless space, one where the rocking of their bodies was the only thing that existed. 

 

Somehow, that soothed him more than the barren of his gun had.

 

***

 

“I'm taking you home,” Keith whispered after the moon had risen in the sky and thousands of people had made their way underneath them. 

 

He still had his hands on Lance, caressing his aching body with a tenderness that couldn’t keep Lance from tensing.

 

“No,” he said, panic rising in his chest, tightening his ribs. There were countless of days when he had been unable to get out of bed trapped in that house. Days in which his legs had seemed to erode in between the sheets. He didn't want to be there. “Not home.”

 

“Okay,” Keith said, easily, lips finding Lance’s temple again and pressing them against it before tugging Lance into a slow step, helping him walk all the way towards his bike.

 

***

 

“A pancake place?” Lance asked, brows tilting up as he watched Keith, ignoring the waitress  that was placing their orders on the table. “Seriously?”

 

Keith shrugged, the blush of his cheek and the desperation in his eyes having receded after holding Lance against him. After feeling him alive and breathing. 

 

He had found the place by pure chance, when it had been hovering over the edges of his vision as he drove, Lance curled into the vast expanse of his back. The place was deserted, the waiters were more often than not in the backroom, but seeing Lance ordering, skin casted in warm lights was all Keith needed to know it had been a good choice. 

 

“Someone suicidal deserves to eat their favourite food,” Keith said, softly, leaning over the table to pick up the napkins. 

 

Lance expected to flinch at that, recoil from being called something that would have shamed anyone else to the ground. But he just shrugged. Accepted it and decided that the pancakes in front of him were a more pressing matter.

 

“Guess I do,” he murmured, fork tinkling against the plate before he was swallowing his first bite without a second thought. 

 

The taste exploded in his mouth, warm and syrupy, and he closed his eyes, fingers curling tightly around the fork as the food went down his throat. He felt shaky, the numbness that had settled inside of him peeling itself off at the heat of his favourite meal.

 

“Lance,” Keith whispered, taking him out of that place his mind used to go, one of his hands covering Lance’s trembling one. 

 

He tightened his grip on the fork and refused to open his eyes. If he had put a bullet in his brain he wouldn’t have gotten to feel this.  _ So what?  _ A part of his brain whispered, but it seemed a distant whisper, one that he could brush off. He wanted this now. Wanted to feel the slow tingling that Keith’s hand left so effortlessly on his skin. Wanted to engrave the knowledge that Keith wanted him in his life forever deep inside his mind, with the smell of pancakes as accompaniment.

 

He sobbed and tried his best to ignore the way Keith's hand was trembling against his skin. 

**Author's Note:**

> [ Twitter ](https://twitter.com/warmybones), [Tumblr](http://warmybones.tumblr.com/).


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